Death She Grows Near
by Quadrantje
Summary: AU of Passion. Angel decides to leave Giles a slightly different gift.


_Disclaimer: Joss Whedon is a genius. I'm not trying to steal your stuff, just playing with it a little. Cover icon made by Claire_aka_bob._

 _Is this fandom still alive?_

Angel's gleeful smirk vanished behind her dark hair as he sank his fangs into Jenny Calendar's neck.

 _ **XXX**_

As he took the steps down to his apartment, Rupert Giles' mind was on business, but the rose on his front door halted his thoughts of herbs and spells firmly in their tracks. Tentatively, as the first swells of music reached him through the wood of his front door, he picked the flower up and brought it to his nose, a smile spreading across his face as he breathed in the sweet perfume. Though he couldn't remember her ever having worn a fragrance like it, there was no doubt in his mind that the rose smelled like Jenny, as the awareness of her presence bloomed in his mind. She was there, in his house, he was sure, and it was with happy anticipation that he opened the door and peeked around its frame.

She wasn't in immediate eyesight, nor did she answer when he called, but the music drifting past him told him she must be there. He put down his briefcase in its usual spot, and hung up his coat, when his eyes fell on an ice bucket, a bottle chilling in it, with a note resting on top. He lay down the rose from his front door gently to pick up the note and unfold it, and discovered the single word 'upstairs' written in semi-elegant script. His eyes moved to the ceiling as an unbelievable warmth spread through his every inch. She was there, waiting for him, wanting, like he did, to make things right between them. And, if the elaborate scene she had set up was anything to go by, to pick up their relationship where it had fallen.

His heart beat joyfully as he removed his glasses and ran a hand through his hair, and he felt just a touch of nervousness. He picked up the bottle of wine, noting the excellent vintage, and the wineglasses she had set out next to it. His heart beat steadily, though a bit fast, pushed on by the crescendo of the music, as he made his way upstairs, past the candles and the roses that lined the flight of stairs.

But when he reached the uppermost rung, the music reaching a soaring climax, he saw his dear Jenny, lying in his bed, unmoving. Her eyes stared up unseeingly at the ceiling. He didn't feel the bottle of wine or the fancy glasses as they slipped through his numb fingers and shattered at his feet, but he did feel his still-beating heart as it did the same.

In the painful eternity that followed, as he stared dully at her body, he never noticed the two puncture wounds on the side of her neck, hidden partly by her carefully-positioned hair. Nor did he realise their significance. Until it was too late.

His silent, unseeing vigil was abruptly broken when the corpse on his bed came alive. In that first, cruel moment that she rose from the bed, he thought he'd been mistaken, that she wasn't dead at all. For the first time in minutes, he could breathe freely. Then, a split second before her face distorted, he realised his mistake. For a moment he froze in horror, watching helplessly as the first, the only woman he had really loved, turned into a monster before his eyes.

The next moment, the reality of the situation hit him and he made a mad dash down the stairs, tumbling more than he was running. He was only just able to keep from falling and rolling down it completely. Reaching downstairs relatively unharmed, he tried to open his weapons locker. His hands shook as adrenaline poured through his veins and grief clawed at his heart. He fumbled desperately with the clasp, but it slipped from his grasp. He reached for it again when a loud bang behind him told him the vampire formerly known as Jenny had leaped his bedroom's gallery and landed at his back.

Resisting the urge to turn around, mostly because he was terrified that if he saw Jenny's face – no matter how distorted - he would freeze, Giles kept trying to open the trunk. He heard the vampire take one step towards him, then two. 'Oh Rupert', it said, in Jenny's voice, so that he could almost believe he didn't hear the malice, just Jenny's teasing lilt. Before that sweet lie could worm its way into his mind, the clasp gave way and he flipped open the crate's lid. Grabbing the first thing there, a one-handed axe, Giles turned around.

He needn't have worried that the sight of Jenny would paralyze him. As he looked at the thing in front of him, he recognized nothing of the smart, spirited woman he'd known. The malevolence that his mind had almost been able to filter out of her voice was seeping from her every pore. It was almost enough to blind him to who she used to be. Almost.

It felt like he needed just one deep, shuddering breath to block out the details he did recognize. Her hair. The circle pattern on her outfit. And the one glaring detail that was new: the bite marks on her neck, that marked her as a victim. But he never got to take that deep breath to centre himself, the vampire jumped him before he could. Before he could mentally erase all the little things that made her Jenny. So when all those hours of training Buffy kicked in and he reflexively swung the axe, what he beheaded still felt like Jenny to him.

There was a dry second when everything stopped, and he looked into those startled eyes before him. Still too familiar. And then, from one breath to the next, she dissolved into dust and vanished. The axe, when he dropped it, hit the floor only a fraction before his knees did, as he collapsed to the floor. The ash coated his pants and hands where they fell into the mess, and some even flaked into his hair. For the moment, he no longer had the strength to stand up.

 ** _XXX_**

In his years as a Watcher, there had been many heavy duties Giles had taken on and fulfilled. Almost all of them, however, paled in comparison to the two duties that followed Jenny's death.

Firstly, when he woke up, exhausted and with his head pounding in time with his heartbeat, in the middle of his living room floor, in a pile of ashes, he took out a broom and dustbin and swept together the remains of Jenny Calendar. Then, before he could throw it in the garbage bin, he stopped. Carefully putting down the dustbin with the ashes, he rummaged through his closet. No vase or box suddenly appeared, but he did find an ancient Etruscan pot – he wasn't sure if it was original or fake. He almost managed a small, ironic smile at the thought of Jenny's reaction had she ever seen it. Another old-fashioned artefact, dusty and smelly. It was everything he was and everything she was not. Though he guessed that in the end she too had been anchored in the past. Then he took up the dustbin and carefully deposited Jenny's ashes in the pot and arranged it on a high shelf.

The second thing he did that day, after telling Buffy, Willow, Xander and Cordelia what had happened, and enlisting Willow's help with the computer, was call up the family of Janna Kalderash and tell them what had happened. That once again, one of their tribe's beloved daughters had fallen victim to Angel. Their wails and tears echoed the ones only he could hear.

 _ **The End**_

 _Most of this story has been on my laptops since 2009. It wasn't supposed to end here, originally, I had meant for vamp Jenny to get away and join Angel. However, I finally acknowledged that that story was never going to get written, at least not by me. So I compromised. I hope you still liked it!_


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